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Youth of the Year
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| Categories: Chickens, Gardening, Tennessee, Dogs, Critters, Literature, Nature-Outdoors 
Vieni vieni candida
vien vermiglia
tu del mondo sei maraviglia
tu nemica d’amare noie
da ad anima delle gioie
messaggiera per primeravera
tu sei dell’anno la giovinezza
tu del mondo sei la vaghezza.
Translation:
Come [flowers and blossoms],
come white, come vermilion.
You are a marvel for the world
and the nemesis of all things dreary.
Give joy to the soul
through your message of spring.
You are the youth of the year
and the beauty of the world.
– Giuseppino (Italian, ca. 1600)
While it is still getting down near freezing on some nights, we are enjoying some glorious spring days here in Middle Tennessee. The warm sunny afternoons signaled the sleeping plants, who are yawning and stretching toward the sunlight. The grass has its first flush of green, daffodils cover the hillsides near old farm houses in the Shire, and when I stumble outside in the pre-dawn darkness to feed the hens, the sky is filled with the sound of birds. –Not just songbirds, mind you: my little banty hens sing to me as well, although their “song” sounds more like a group of angry jays scolding me.
The little ladies are doing well, and I believe all four of the gold-necked d’Uccles are laying now. There is a bit of hen drama going on in the coops, however, as the onset of spring has signaled two of my bantam cochins to go broody.
When a hen decides to “go broody,” she will sit for weeks on a nest in a trancelike state. She will have pulled the soft down feathers from her breast area to line her nest and expose the eggs to the warmth of her skin. She may leave the nest very briefly for food, water and a good stretch, but a good broody hen will return to her responsibility quickly. To the nest she’ll return and sit, flattened and growling like an angry pancake, pecking anyone who dares disturb her precious eggs.
Both Lucy Liu and Aunt Bea have gone broody (yes, Aunt Bea is still here, but that’s another story). Luckily for them I happened to have some fertile bantam cochin eggs from a contact in North Carolina, and both hens hatched out some adorable little chicks. Unluckily for me, I removed the chicks to stay with their brothers and sisters in a brooder, and both hens are now still broody.
I seem to be on a trajectory winding ever closer to Ultimate Cuteness: first the bantam hens, then two batches of standard-size chicks, and now a batch of what may be the cutest chicks ever: bantam cochin frizzles. These chicks are bantam sized cochins, with full, round tail feathering and feathered feet. As an added bonus, though, over half have the genetic trait of “frizzling,” meaning their feathers curl. When they are grown they will look like adorable one-pound little feather balls. Be still, my heart!
At one week of age I can already tell which ones express the frizzle gene. Below on the left is a “splash” chick, who will be white with splashes of grey. Her feathers will be straight. On the right is a blue (or possibly lemon blue) chick who will be frizzled. Even his tiny foot feathers are curled!
In between caring for chicks and hens, I am also beginning my garden preparations for the year. I spent yesterday planting herbs and roses around the banty playhouse, and I hope to begin planting vegetable seedlings indoors today - - although those who know me and my superstitions also know I will not be ready to announce my 2009 plantings until we are fully past the “jinx” stage. We will keep the same size plot we used last year, though, with some changes to the lineup to get more of the veggies we want.
As I type this I am looking out the window realizing we are blessed with another gorgeous spring day - - and I am indoors! I am going outside to enjoy the lovely weather, and I wish you all a Sunday full of sunshine and new leaves poking through the warm soil.
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For a cute video of broody hens, visit Rooster Red’s YouTube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7-HY5OV5CA .
To read about the New World Renaissance Band’s album featuring the quote opening this post, visit http://cdbaby.com/cd/tnwrband1 .
To learn more about Nightwatch Recording, a wonderful record label that supports medieval and Renaissance artists, visit http://www.nightwatchrecording.com/ .
Alba Go Bragh
Ye can tak th’ Border Collie
oot o’ th’ “Heelands” ~
boot ye canna tak
th’ Heelands
oot o’ th’ Collie.
*sigh*
Got sheep?
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Saturday in Suburbia
| Categories: Background, Chickens, Food, Gardening, Feed, Housing, Predators, Miscellaneous Stuff, Eggs, Dogs, Cat, Critters, Wine 
Another Saturday has come and gone on the Jenotopia suburban wanna-be-farm. The animals and I passed the day with a nice mix of work and play, so I thought I would share a slice of our typical weekend day.
My weekend day starts just before 6 a.m., when I groggily climb out of bed and prepare to feed the chickens. I am not a morning person, so this part of the day is sometimes a bit bumpy. Once I am awake, I am always glad to be up, though, as the mornings are beautiful here. This time when I came out of the house I was greeted by the sight of a small flock of Canada geese winging their way overhead.
By now the hens have heard me coming down the steps, and I hear their clucking and complaining (“Let us out!”). I’d better get to it! I quickly sweep up the run before their breakfast ~
~ and then I collect some scratch grains and grit (tiny gravel) to go with their gourmet breakfast of greens, fresh corn on the cob, chopped parsley, and broccoli.
After the chickens and dogs have been fed, it’s my time: I enjoy a double cappuccino on the patio as the sun comes up.
Suddenly I feel the tickle of whiskers on my elbow, followed by a small, wet lick: Thaney, my perpetual, obsessive Helper, reminds me she is here and available for whatever comes up . . . especially if I happen to bring a biscotti out to the patio.
Sometimes I will come back in and do some writing or work photos ~ but not yesterday! Instead I lingered over my coffee, enjoying the roses waving in the breeze and watching the chickens out in the back yard.
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The hens wander around in the morning sun, grazing on grass and picking bugs and worms out of the yard. On the weekends they will spend most of the day in the yard, munching and napping.
As I drink my coffee I look around and notice 500 things that need to be done. When my fidgeting gets unbearable I pull my boots on and get to work. This weekend I worked on weeding and finishing the stepping stones in the new herb garden.
RT and I also worked on finishing the tomato cages for the vegetable garden.
While we worked, the dogs ran around the field behind the house sniffing interesting things, chasing birds and digging mole hills, and rolling in mysterious substances.
Manny’s combination of age and tendency to get into mischief render him housebound these days; while I am outside I can hear him shouting at me from the window.
By now the sun is reaching its peak, and it’s getting a bit hot. The hens have been busy laying eggs during their play time; I collect eggs from the coop before they get too warm.
In early afternoon we work on other projects, like preparing the coop for really warm weather. I dreamed up a nice, secure screen door for the coop, and RT helped make it a reality.
When it’s time for a break, I sometimes sit in the grass and watch the chickens. They always come over to investigate, and sometimes they will sit around me and nap in the shade.
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As I return to my projects, I notice one of our local hawks checking out the hens ~
Girls, maybe it’s time to go back into the covered run!
The afternoon passes quickly, and some weekends we will fire up the grill and cook outside. Sometimes we do something fancy, and sometimes it will just be the nice simplicity of burgers ~
Or if I am feeling ambitious, I might make a souffle or something experimental ~
~ but no matter what we cook I will uncork a nice little wine (although the egg dishes will always call for something white, not red!).
After dinner we’ll let the hens back out, and I will walk the gardens with the dogs and my wine glass. We’ll survey the progress we made, and ~ hey, what’s that?
Yes, my neighbor is also a frustrated wanna-be farmer, and he is riding his beautifully-restored tractor up and down the street after dinner. I swirl my wine and envy his tractor.
The evening winds down, and the sun begins to set as we listen to a little Miles Davis on the patio. The hens quietly come in to roost and the dogs are nodding off, bellies full of whatever weekend feast we enjoyed. I will go to bed with aching weekend-warrior muscles, tired but happy after spending a day with herbs and chickens, dogs and tomatoes and juicy red wine.
It was a good day.
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Greengrass
” A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.”
- Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
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Once upon a time I made yearly visits to Tennessee from my home in Monterey County, California. I clearly recall the sweetness of these visits ~ starting with my first close-up view of Tennessee as the plane landed. I was always struck with the intense green of the landscape: coming from a land where I would leave indoor furniture on the patio all summer, or crave the mere sight of a cloud in the clear blue sky of the Salinas Valley in August, the vision of green that greeted me as we touched down was stunning. It was almost too much for my eyes to take in, and during the drive from the airport through the Shire I feasted my starved eyes on the beautiful trees and grass.
Despite the Dogwood Winter that will bring our temperatures very near freezing tonight here in Middle Tennessee, I am very aware of the fact that we are poised at the edge of green chaos. The warmth and rain will soon plunge us into a riot of greenery, with tomato plants groaning on their supports, roses tumbling over fences in perfumed abundance, and lush grass that needs to be mowed twice a week.
Last week the maples shed their seed pods in a whirl of tiny brown helicopters fluttering in the breeze, and on Sunday morning the yard looked as though someone had held a party the night before and left a sprinkle of beautiful confetti across the green grass. The hens had a field day running across the yard catching crane flies and looking for fat grubs, and they were so worn out from the chase by mid-afternoon that they all took naps in the run, clacking their beaks in sleepy contentment.
Sounds like a good day to me.
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Sunshine, play, good food, sleep. It really is that simple.
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“Have you got greengrass yet? We have.”
- Mary O’Hara, My Friend Flicka
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Buried Treasure
There is something mythic, primeval and fascinating about buried treasure. When I was little, BD Soupski had a copy of Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates in his collection, and we three Dirty Rottens would sit around in a circle retracing the dangerous and exciting exploits of Captain Scarfield, Blackbeard, and Captain Kidd.
The thought that something very valuable is hidden away in the depths is so mysterious, so appealing to us that even adults find the idea of buried treasure irresistible. Growing up near the remains of Spanish and early American settlements in North Florida, I saw first-hand what effect treasure had on adults. The thin spit of land that is now Fort Pickens State Park near Pensacola is still filled with old gun batteries, and several forts still stand as well. While we played games in the dark old passages, adults very seriously walked the sandy trails with metal detectors, eager to find gold or trinkets ~ better technology, perhaps, but the very same eagerness the Spanish had shown three-hundred fifty years before.
Some might say this eagerness is pure and simple greed ~ perhaps even a desire to get “something for nothing.” While not denying the effects of greed, I also think there is some part of our consciousness that wants to believe there is more to life than meets the eye, and finding buried treasure of any kind is the ultimate way to prove it. There is also something mystical and highly symbolic about searching for treasure: on one level it represents our own search for our source, and for the hidden value in the mundane world that we dearly want to believe exists.
This might be one reason I garden: every time I dig in the soil I think of its mysteries, what it was, what it held, what it will become. Farmers and gardeners will tell you good soil is “good as gold” ~ it is a precious resource, and if managed carefully it is one that will yield great crops for many years to come. I have found many things in the soil over the years ~ marbles, jewelry, plastic toys, a rubber snake (NOT cool), construction materials, even rusted old farm implements.
This weekend when we decided to attack the ancient burn pile we hit something solid beneath the clippings and brush. Gently opening the tangled mass with rake and hoe, we found a dark-brown mound: a scrape across the top of the pile revealed the most amazing, rich, brown, worm-filled compost I could ever hope to find. All thoughts of burning now dissolved, we turned to uncovering our treasure and plumbing the depths of the precious stuff until the entire pile was transferred to the new vegetable garden.
Back in the vegetable garden, RT made another swing with the tiller while I began making furrows for the soaker irrigation hose. As I covered the hose while the rain drizzled down, I imagined that by July this drip line would be a buried treasure all its own to the cucumbers, snap beans, squash, melons, tomatoes, and all the other denizens of the garden. The Tennessee sun could blaze overhead all it wanted while the roots of my little plants enjoyed the coolness of damp earth beneath their straw bed. There’s more to my garden than meets the eye, and that suits me just fine.
Would I have been happier to discover a box of gold than precious gardener’s compost? Yes; but I think that teaching our eyes to see the little treasures helps them perceive the great ones when they come.
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